Technical Field
The present disclosure relates to a method of fabricating a housing and a housing.
Description of Related Art
With features of lightweight, easy-made, and low cost, plastics has been widely used in manufacturing processes of injection molding or thermoforming. In the manufacturing processes, molten plastic are first injected into a mold, and then a housing formed with a desired shape under the pressure and temperature change.
In the past, spraying operations were usually used to make the surface of plastics render special patterns or colors. However, the spraying operations need more time, in addition to machines and factories, to dry paints, and the spraying operations must be performed after the plastics is formed by injection machines, which spend even more time and labor costs. Therefore, a process of In-Mold-Roller (IMR), which refers to attaching printing ink to the surface of the plastics by thermal transferring, is developed for products of mass production. Referring to FIG. 5A to FIG. 5D, the figures are schematic diagrams of the conventional process of In-Mold-Roller. The mold used in the process of In-Mold-Roller Injection Molding mainly includes a female die 50, a male die 52, and a stripper 54. The process of In-Mold-Roller Injection Molding is performed to position a continuous film 4 to an injection mold cavity by a feeder and a retainer plate (as shown in. FIG. 5A), to adsorb the film 4 onto a die surface of the female die 50 by a vacuum device (as shown in FIG. 5B), and to inject after the female die 50 and the male die 52 are clamped to each other (as shown in FIG. 5C). At this time, the plastic will be injected into the cavity between the male die 52 and the female die 50 via the stripper 54, the plastic in the cavity is finally molded to become a plastic product 6, and ink 7 will be transferred onto the surface of the plastic product 6. When the female die 50 and the male die 52 are opened, the ink 7 and the film 4 are separated from each other to complete the decoration of the surface of the plastic product 6 (as shown in FIG. 5D), and the waste materials 8 can be removed after the male die 52 and the stripper 54 are separated from each other.
However, a shortcoming of the current process of In-Mold-Roller Injection Molding is that the film is influenced by product shape, mold design, and conditions and parameters of injection molding during injection molding, so that the film is easily broken and folded to cause an adverse appearance. As such, the process of In-Mold-Roller Injection Molding is normally applied to products with flat appearance surfaces or appearance surfaces with smaller curvatures. Accordingly, how to perform the process of In-Mold-Roller Injection Molding to products having uneven appearance surfaces or having appearance surfaces with larger curvatures becomes an important issue to be solved by those in the industry.